Marianna's Blog

Lessons & Reflections from the National Butterfly Center

I’ve started three or four columns in the last several months. Each begins with a good idea, and quickly unravels. Something sweet and simple sours. That strong theme, one I am sure will dance across the page with happy feet, takes a left turn and goes south, fast. And by south I mean Antarctica—not south Texas—where gem-colored butterflies and birds fill the skies with Fruit Loop hues.

This is my season of sadness.

It started a month or so before the Texas Butterfly Festival, when members-turned-friends began to share their stories of illness, suffering and loss: a stricken wife, a broken heart, a loved one destroyed by dementia…. For me, there was a kind man who made music, my best friend’s mother, an associate moved to hospice, and then, my father.

Lessons & Reflections from the National Butterfly Center

Last week I missed National Wildlife Day and Grandparent’s Day. Who knew these “days” even existed?!

A quick search of such things turns up Stepparent’s Day and National Beer Day, in addition to the better known Groundhog Day and President’s Day. I don’t celebrate any of these, or birthdays, because the truth is I can’t remember the birthday of anyone to whom I did not give birth.

Does this make me a bad person? A bad friend? A bad daughter? I hope I make up for this shortcoming in a dozen other ways that compensate for my cluelessness.

As for all the other days, like Christmas, Valentine’s and Labor Day, they’re pretty hard to forget (or ignore) and I recognize them in relation to the people who mean the most to me.